catharsis
by amaranthine piety
Summary: The only pitiful soul that Allen cannot cleanse is the one that matters the most to him. .:Lavi/Allen:.


Disclaimer: D. Gray-man doesn't belong to me.

This story is a dark one. It may be crappy, but it delves into disturbing concepts, and things that may not be so appropriate for minors. Only read on if you're mature enough to handle its content, and the hideous writing style.

* * *

His eyes scan me as I stride into his room for the fifth night in a row.

We both know what I want.

We both know that I want it more than the forty-ninth ever did.

Blood—none of it _mine_, of course—is trickling down my hands, and leaving a trail of copper at my wake. He stares at the complacent smile that is slowly working its way onto my lips, tugging at the corners of them so that they twist up into the same sadistic smirk that my victims had seen before they breathed their very last at my feet.

"They had it coming," I excuse my brash actions just like I had done last night and the predeceasing one with the same blatant justification. They _had_ after all, those purposeless pieces of shit. They were looking at me, laughing, mocking, making jokes—as if they weren't just bones coated by seven layers of skin, as if history would ever remember them. Pathetic. They deserved what came to them.

He deserves whatever comes to him by my hand.

He doesn't judge.

He doesn't judge me, only watches, as his fingers subconsciously wrap around his blanket and pull the fabric away from his legs. He stands up, and slowly walks to the bathroom. The way he delicately, carefully, _precisely_ puts one foot in front of the other makes my fingers tingle with undeniable _want._

He doesn't dare to break the blackened web of silence that is strung between us with his radiant voice; he only pushes the door to the bathroom open. I hear the muffled sounds of water filling up the porcelain tub.

He's my only conscience, him. I can imagine him, bending over the bathtub, filling it. That alone makes my heartbeat quicken. I want him. I want him more than the forty-ninth ever did.

I eclipsed every emotion the pathetic forty-ninth ever had. Everything he once owned is now _mine._

This boy inclusive.

He steps out, his eyes downcast as he closes the door behind him. The sound of wood lightly adjoining wood is the loudest sound I have ever heard in this room—contrasting poorly with the deafening screams that my victims presented me with tonight while their bodies ripped and tore at the seams. He always mumbles in that clear, translucent voice of his. He never screams, never raises his voice a decibel louder.

He's soft. I'm callous. We contrast, and yet we fit.

"When the water fills up some more, you should clean up," He whispers in a barely-audible voice more so to the floor than to my face. Perhaps he is still afraid, still uneasy, for he knows why I come in here night after night, even while I don't.

I hate it when other, insignificant souls comprehend things that I have yet to discover.

_Damn them, damn them all._

Damn them all.

Damn all of those worthless guards of the prison, which I sentenced myself to escape this boy, who took pleasure in being verbally sadistic towards me. Their grimy, hideous fists once crushed against my body, laughing laughing, _laughing_ all the while – they got what was coming to them. I made sure of it.

Damn all of those ignorant prisoners in the cell next to mine. Those pathetic leeches, always staining their hands with their own snot and tears and blood as they wailed day-in-and day out, or having endless slews of curses spat out at me—claiming with their holier-than-thou logic, that I needed to "repent for my sins," or that "carnage isn't the answer." Those forsaken assholes would shove impaired, sooty books into my face, saying that I needed to "find God" like they did, and become a self-righteous son-of-a-bitch rather than an irritable murderer.

The only form of vermiculated abreaction I found was when my knife slid in between their ribs.

They had it coming. They_ all_ had it coming. They were worthless, and unimportant, so I poured molten lead in their veins.

Those ingrates had it coming when I plunged the iron bars to my cell through their lungs, and sewed their lips shut with the threads that held that Goddamn book that they worshipped so much together. Those guards had it coming when I lunged my hips into their own, hearing them cry out from beneath me while I laughed, laughed, _laughed._

I hope they all _burn_ with their botched _God._

Their blood all felt so _good_ running through my fingertips, discoloring my palm. Endless chills of raw indulgence ran throughout my body as they writhed. Killing, gore, and blood were my only companions – the only thing in my life that made it worthwhile.

Until _he_, this boy, came into my life.

"You look better when you're not drenched in this," He finished his sentence, unable to use the word 'blood.' Those chaste eyes of his steal a glance at my corrupt face, before returning to his bare feet. A hushed whisper. "I don't like seeing you like this."

Covering the sole entity in the world that made me want to atone with my gloved hand, I step closer to him, hastily pining him to the opposing wall with my torso – he's so _small _and _weak_ underneath me – because, I know that he'll disappear just like everyone else did if I don't entrap him in time.

If I don't make him mine, he'll leave me.

I may not need a heart, I may be better suited without love, affections, and the feeling of someone's soft head lying on my chest, but I need him. I need him.

I need him.

"Then don't look at me, _monster_," I expectorate into the conch of his ear. He shivers. He's a mutant because he is the only creature of his kind in my world. He's an alien, a new species to me, and he's the only one that I will ever meet. He's different, he doesn't like the feel of blood, he abhors cursing, and he's fragile. He's delicate, but strong. He's a monster because he won't stop until he's destroyed all of us—every last soul in this wretched Bookman's body.

Should I record this—my uncanny, unrequited feelings for this murderer? (He, himself, was the sole reason as to why the forty-ninth had to be abolished, after all.) The same emotions that the failure-forty-ninth and I share?

He's a monster, but he's _my_ monster. He's the twisted, unfortunate object that my affections are directed upon.

I hear the trickling of water spilling onto marble. I shove the boy aside and quickly shut off the water's flow. He stands in the doorway as I shed my clothes, and slide into the bathtub.

"Get in," I demand. We both know that saying "no" is not an option.

He hesitates, his small fingers enveloping the waistband of his pants. They finally drop and pool at his feet, as he steps out of them. He walks with feigned confidence towards me, his shirt coming up over his head, and then resting on the tiled floor. He stops with one foot in the tub beside me, his milky hair concealing his perfect eyes from my view.

I don't have patience for his little games. I don't have time to watch him bite his lower lip, as he debates whether or not to join me.

He doesn't have a choice.

_Are you recording this?_

I yank roughly on his foot, causing him to let out a small wail as he lands in my arms. The water's distain is apparent as it splashes around us, wetting the floor even more.

"S-sorry," He mutters, his arms resting against my chest. Though his discomfort is apparent, he makes no attempt to push my copper-stained arms off of from their compact grip from around his waist.

"Stupid savage," I swear, as my bloody fingers swipe over his deformed arm, stroking it in ways softer than I had ever thought my hands capable of doing. His eyes glide shut, a prayer forming on his lips. He wants to me stop, but he'll never say it. He's too afraid. He loves me too much.

His free hand trails up and cups my cheek, running his fingertips over a droplet of crimson on it, wiping it away from existence.

His touch alone can weather the blackness of my heart.

The clear water begins to morph into a thick vermillion substance with every passing second that I reside in it, him in my lap.

My hands are still gliding over that one malfunction in this boy's otherwise blameless existence. When I had first met him—his cheeks tearstained, his lithe body trembling, and his mouth pleading with me to stop, stop, _stop_—I had initially thought that he was simply foolproof. It was later that I noticed those two red imperfections that he possessed.

But, it is okay.

It is okay.

It is acceptable because red is my favorite color. I breathed and bathed in red—it was only recently that I had begun to inhale and live in this child.

But, right now, I'm looking for something immaculate. I do not covet this scaly, misshapen arm—it's only succeeding in making me want to rape. He's only succeeding in making me want to murder. No one would notice his absence. No one would mind.

History would not be altered by this child's demise by my hand.

The boy doesn't even cry out when my hand abruptly curls around his marred arm, and my palm slams against the back of his head, dunking him underneath the reddened water. I am disposing of this atrocity, tearing off this sole deformity. He's too perfect to have this arm, and that scar. He's too perfect.

Why can't at least one thing in my life be beautiful? Why, why, why, why, _why?_

Why doesn't he even know my name?

Why must he be stained and I wasn't the one who caused it?

He's bucking now, and bubbles are rising to the surface at an accelerated rate – more rapidly than how fast the girl from tonight's heart had stopped beating from under my first. I can hear his smothered protests, his slick legs kicking out from underneath me.

I don't want him to die, what am I doing?

But he betrayed me.

He betrayed me.

His arm is coarse, not creamy to the touch like the rest of his flesh is. He betrayed me and he deserves this.

He deserves this.

The monster.

My grasp from around his skull relinquishes, and he rises to the surface. Locks of his whitened hair are caught in the faint light from the flickering candles on the counter adjacent to us, as he gasps for the same air that I am breathing. Pathetic. What a pathetic creature.

He's not crying, I know he's not. The water that is skidding down his cheeks is the same water that I dunked his head below the surface of. He doesn't cry anymore.

He doesn't ask why this time, he's used to this. He knows that this is the only way that I can effectively show my affection for him. He knows that I am incapable of showing my love in any other way—for he knows I'm not supposed to. He knows this, and so he keeps his damp lips shut, while silent red water trickles from his eyes and down his cheeks.

He adjusts himself behind me, and gradually wipes a seemingly forgotten bar of soap over my back. I never clean up after myself; he always has to do it for me.

"You stupid monstrosity," I snarl, as his clutch around the soap slips, and it splashes beneath the poisoned water.

His hand dives down beneath the waves. I felt it scanning the floor, looking for the object. As his hand whisks by my own, a fleeting sensation of lust and adulation passes over me. I clamp my hand around his, and whirl around so I can face him. His glossy eyes look up at me, droplets of red on his eyelashes.

He's sad. He's sad, sad, sad, and it's my fault. His lower lip is quivering slightly. He thinks I won't notice. He forgets that my eye sees everything—every fleck of blue in his otherwise gray irises, every quake of his body when he's afraid, every time he silently pleads for me to go away, and for his precious other to return.

The person he fell in love with is long gone. I'm here, now. I'm here to stay. The man this boy loved is gone, gone, _gone_, because I disposed of him. He was too weak, for this boy in front of me made him so.

We have similar taste, it seems.

"I'm clean enough," I murmur, my grip sliding down his hand to settle around his wrist, affixing it to the side of the basin. I can hardly contain my desire to be inside this boy any longer, I crave to hear his soft laments underneath me, while I strip him of his innocence night after night. I _need _the salvation that his touch offers me.

And he knows it.

His breath comes out in short, ragged rasps, as he wordlessly rises from his sitting position. Water cascades down his milky, thin legs as he ascends. He takes a tentative step forward, only to trip under the unanticipated slippery floor, and crash back down to Earth into my waiting arms. The water throws a tantrum as it bursts around us.

I lift him up, above it all—above myself, as we step out of the bath together. My arms are under his legs, his feet dangling over the floor, and my hand cupping the back of his neck as we walk. I feel the small hairs on his neck rise from my touch.

I don't want to hurt this boy; he's the sole person in the entire world who it would pain me to see covered in his own blood. That's he why gets the towel while I sit on the bed, unconcealed and ready, waiting only until he dries every last drop of red that coated his skin so I could taint him some more.

Now, he's only half-clean, but I feel my weakened dam of restraint breaking. Vaulting at him, I capture him in my arms. Clawing at the deliciously breakable veins in his wrist, I fasten him to the floor with my legs. I am about twice the size of him.

When did he get so small? He wasn't this breakable when _that man_ was hugging him. I felt the boy's body against my breast when the forty-ninth was embracing him, but, now that it's my turn, he's so much weaker.

He is just so easy to dominate, to control, to _kill_.

He doesn't say 'I love you,' to me.

"I can kill you in a heartbeat," I taunt, increasing the pressure of my muscular body crushing his starved one. I can feel my heartbeat accelerating – I _live_ for this. I live for feeling others dying and suffering below me. I live for those moments where I can mash my hands against someone else's heart, and feel it slowly stop beneath mine. I love that. I love this. _I love this boy_.

Why is it destiny for all of the souls jammed into my body to love this child? All in different ways, different colors of love, but all the same.

"I… I know you won't, though," He breathes, a small smile playing on his lips. He always ends everything with that damn gorgeous beam of his, casting its glorious sunlight onto my lurid, revolting heart.

"What makes you so sure, brat?"

His response comes in the form of a kiss. His profuse, coral lips enfold my own, callous, devoid ones. I pull his body to mine, one hand on the small of his back and one his waist. My tongue presses against the front of his blanche teeth, asking – no, _demanding_ entrance. He complies, his lips parting in order for my tongue to scavenge around. My ivories sink into the plush of his lip, and he lets out a miniscule yelp that is quickly ended by my tongue worming its way down his throat. He shudders nether me, and my heart pumps adrenaline and avidity throughout my veins.

My hand traces patterns into the cool flesh of his abdomen, trailing down to his navel. I have a flakey, raw touch, but I don't give a damn whether he minds or not.

His opinion is of no value when he's arching his back for me.

Not for the other one, never for him. Only for me.

_Chew on that, forty-ninth._

The pallid canvas of his skin is splayed out before me. It's torture not to trail a knife down it, make it bleed and open for me. How I _long_ to hear his adorable, poignant shrieks below me as I tear him open, but shoving myself into him can suffice for the lack of bloodshed.

His powdered eyes widen as I unceremoniously flip him over so his stomach is shoved against the ground, leaving the rest of him vulnerable for my defilation. He lets out a small gasp, only to realize his mistake too late, and bite his lower lip.

"Shut up, bitch," I growl. He stays silent. I force my fingers in between his lips, ensuing pained gasps as they dig their nails into his tongue. "Suck on them."

As he is filling my ears with the bittersweet tints of silent pleas, anguish-ridden screams, and tears written all over his shaking frame beneath me, I allow my eyelids to slide shut, and let euphoria wash over me in a thick wave of lust.

It always is satisfactory to attenuate something alive—something I _love—_without killing it.

A single name is forming on his chapped lips, but he'll never say it. He'll never say the name of the man who he once fell in love with an eternity ago. He'll never dare to speak the name of the man who he once would lay his tired head on the chest of, and count the number of heartbeats he could make up before he fell asleep.

He'll never utter the name of the man he would kiss when the sun went down, because he's gone, and now I'm here. I have his body, his face, and his lover—this child.

_This is what happens when you fall in love, forty-ninth. You're gone and now he's suffering. Heed my words._

"Don't say his name," I mutter into his ear, before clamping my teeth over it. "Say _mine."_

He doesn't. He stays silent, just the way I like it.

He knows I'm not the forty-ninth. He knows that he's been asphyxiated, and, yet, he's still here.

He's still here.

He and I both know that he can leave, and that I won't stop him if he attempts to. But he likes it like this, that's why he doesn't leave. He loves me, and I love him in return.

He loves me, and that's why he stays. I know that the forty-ninth, that pathetic entity named 'Lavi,' has been pushed far from his mind. I know that he loves me, now.

Me, and only me. No 'Lavi' to get in the way of us.

_(Sometimes, in the still of night, when I'm draping my arms over him in bed, and I'm pushing his head against my chest, trying to reenact the scenes between him and the forty-ninth; I hear him whisper his name into my skin. "Lavi, Lavi.")_

_(He can't hear you, boy.)_

_(But, I can.)_

He thinks that he can bring salvation to this pitiful demon's soul.

_(The forty-ninth inside of me begs me to stop—to let him go, and end this torture.)_

_(He doesn't know that it's more than just punishing him for falling in love, now.)_

_(I can't stop. I should have known that history was to repeat itself.)_

He isn't aware of who really holds the strings in this situation. Yet.

This boy will be the end of all Bookmen. Yet, somehow, I find that I don't care.

No matter how many times we change personas to get away from our unnecessary affections for this boy, we'll just keep on falling in love with him.

_Falling in love with him..._

From the floor, his eyes scan me as I leave. My newly bloodstained hands are leaving fresh trails of crimson on the carpet.

_I will never record this._

After I exit Allen's room, I don't look back once.

We both know I'll be back tomorrow, anyway.


End file.
